Saturday, October 5, 2019

Le bateau est à vendre

Following change of plans, we are offering the boat for sale

Caroff SUPERDISKO 45 steel centerboard 1994, cutter rig.  Renovated 2015, metal work professionally done. Inside and outside steering; deck salon and galley; three staterooms plus extra salon downstairs with twin and bunk beds, 12 berths total. Water tanks 200gal, fuel  300gal, waste 100gal.


Asking price: CAN$80000
modflod   gmail.com
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Thursday, August 13, 2015

August 12th 2015

I am back from vacation after a week in the Pacific NorthWest for  a reunion in Shannan’s family, as well as a quick visit to my brother.  Shannan and the kids will stay an extra week at Grandma Kathie’s while I’ll head back and move forward on the boat.  The Pacific NW is magnificent, and we’re quite lucky to spend a few days near Mt Rainier and then a few more near Mt St Helens.  I also visited Port Townsend real quick before dropping back the rental car.  It is very quaint and right at the center of American heritage when it comes to wooden boats.

The new electric motor that drives the hydraulic pump behaves exactly like its predecessor (it turns too slow and heats up).  I didn’t let it run for a long time but long enough to take the tension at the motor: 10v.  That’s not enough.  An ammeter gives a wooping 354A draw with the pump running.  That will not do.  The rig is sent for checkup at the hydraulic shop close-by but I suspect that the conversion to electric that was done in 2009 did not yield the expected results:  Particularly suspect to me is that the electric motor is coupled directly to the pump, yet the latter should turn at 1200RPM and the former spins at 2700RPM.  I might have to revert to the original setup where the pump was driven by pullies to the main diesel engine.

All the windows are in.  Even after optimizing the installation process (we did 7 of those…) we couldn’t get under 3 hours a piece.  If you add the opening ports in the galley and head windows, it took a full 4 days of work.  It is quite a relief though to have the boat finally watertight after almost 3 years.

We are also done with the welding.  JP completed the job in about 7 days, including one at the shop to fabricate the transom doors that we came up with:  We needed to find a solution to the helmseat, which was originally based on the panel we removed.  The brainstorm eventually yielded a removable double door with the base open to let water out.  I’m very pleased with the result;  Now I only have to paint.


Reefer tests:  One of them is air cooled and the other one is a hybrid water/air cooled system.  Since the boat is on the hard, I planned on waiting to test the latter (I only need one refrigerator anyway!) so I started up the air cooled one.  After a little while, it seems to work ok, although we’ll have to let it run for 24 hours to know for sure.  For now it draws 5A.  What a surprise when the Ammeter still shows -5A when the whole DC panel is turned off.  I have a flash and open the panel under the sole under which the second reefer is installed.  Of course it is running:  It was plugged directly on the DC distribution bus, before the panel and without a fuse or breaker.  Decidedly, this boat was wired artistically!


Shannan should finish the overhead panels within 3 days.  Grandpa and I prepared the reinstallation of the centerboard;  It needs to go in at an angle because there is a steel bar across the trunk that prevents it from going in fully horizontal.  We had to modify the wood crate/support.  Appointment is taken for September 3rd.  Until then, I have to fabricate HDPE plates that are screwed on each side of the board to soften the rotation up and down.  The original ones were destroyed during sandblasting.  I’ll also have to paint the trunk interior and the board with antifouling paint.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Beginning of work, summer 2015



Here we go again.  We arrived in Quebec toward the end of June, ready for another summer of work on the boat, hopefully the last one.  We therefore have rented a cabin close-by and take the opportunity to spend time with our family, which we have sorely missed during our stay in Japan.  Joshua and Benjamin have a lot of fun with their cousins of the same age.  The yellow perches and sunfish of the river better be  ready!
It takes us a good week to finally open the shrink-wrap tarp over the boat.  Partly because settling the family takes time but partly, we have to admit for fear of the massive projet under the tarp.  After a thorough inspection, all is good.  A raccoon made his nest on deck but didn’t dint a way inside, to my relief.  Other than a bit of dust, everything is exactly the way we left it.  No rust reappeared after our work of 2013.  It takes a couple of days to air-out the boat and remove the mildew smell and to slowly form a plan for the summer.
First, the tarp must disappear.  This is a boat, not a barn.  That puts reinstalling the windows on the top of the priority list.  Then there is the motor to recondition.  It ran at the purchase but didn’t since.  I’m a bit nervous, this could turn expensive Pronto.  Then there are the 2 hydraulic systems;  The steering system that includes the 2 wheels, rudder cylinder and automatic pilot and the windlass/bow thruster system.  Number4, the electric system and last but not least, with the help of our welder JP, we are completely redoing the transom and swim platform: The current one is rotten with rust.  With all of this done, we’ll splash her at the beginning of next summer.
Grandpa and Lulu are returning from their boat in Florida on July 8th so we have a full week before we can touch the windows (that’s a 2-man job).  I decide to familiarize myself with the electric system.  Meter in hand, I follow cables from one end of the boat to the other, head in the bilge.   
After many modifications, many wires lead nowhere and are just capped and abandoned.  I remove the obvious ones while trying to understand the logic of the remaining ones.  A couple of days later, it’s more or less done.  Ther was originally 3 battery banks, 1 for the motor and 2 house.  It was now reduced to 1 of each.  From the purchase, I was still under the impression that the starting batteries were half dead.  After a few days of charge, they seem to hold their charge surprisingly well (and it’s a  good thing, these are 3 very expensive batteries, more on this later).  That being said, the Trojan T-125 house batteries are gone.  They wond charge past 12.35v.  Not a big loss, we’ll put new ones in before launching next year.  Next I make an executive decision:  The cockpit lazarettes will lose half their  volume.  We need to remove all insulation from the transom panel to allow JP to safely weld the new one in place.  With the rat’s next of hydraulic, electric, water and gaz lines back there around the rudder post, it’S almost impossible to have access without destroying something.  With the wood of the lazarette shelves removed, it’s much better (and a big weight off my shoulders).
Granpa and Lulu arrive in Canada by the Lacolle border crossing, just up the road and stop by for a few days.  I shamelessly put him right to work.  We install the first salon window.  In 2013, we tried many different adhesive-caulkings on different openings of the boat, by importance of said openings and my willingness to start over if the caulking fails.  The winner is DowCorning 795, the Nemesis of Sikaflex295.  Silicone-based adhesive, 500% elongation and UV resistant.  I used it for the skylight over the companionway, without putting any mechanical fastenings back in.  I’m very impressed:  Standing under it and pushing up with all my (incredible) strength, it will not move a iota.  For the salon windows, we will use bolts and nuts as this boat was originally designed with, but we decrease the size from ¼” to #10 to make room for caulking in the holes and decrease the danger of cracking due to the considerably different coefficient of thermal expansion of steel and acrylic.  I expect the windows to take a maximum of 1 day each to put in.  The first one takes 3 hours and 3 tubes of caulking… looking good.  In parallel to this we attack the motor job.  First, we put back in 3 minutes the exhaust line which we had painstakingly removed 2 years ago (now that there is space in the starboard  lazarette).  Then we do a bit of head scratching as to what’s what on that Perkins M80T Prima.  Kivioq’s motor was a Yanmar and Grandpa’s is a Volvo-Penta.  We find the bleed pump, run the line to a fresh jerry-can of fuel and put the seawater input hose in a bucket, and tune the key.  It starts immediately!  3 years without turning and the cat purrs within 3 seconds of being asked.  I love diesel engines.  There are still a few hurdles to clear: The water doesn’t run because the seawater filter gasket is old and dry, and there is exhaust fumes and water that mysteriously accumulate in the bilge (the wet exhaust drain is open) but a few hours later, we have a working diesel.

We change the oil of the steering system and spend more quality time upside down in the bilge following lines throughout the boat.  There is still some air in the lines but that’s minor.  I spend some time reading the autopilot manual and finally get it to work.  It needs to ba calibrated but it works.
Of the electric system, all the lighting fixtures work except of course the ones I removed in the salon to redo the windows.  After the new ones are in, with their respective trims and overheads, I’ll reinstall them and they should all work.

On the subject of overheads, Shannan is in charge here and she wastes no time in finding online how to rebuild them.  When I removed them after we bought the boat, they mostly disintegrated in my hands as the wood cores were rotten from years of leaks.  We need luan plywood, glued to Reflectix and covered with quality vinyl.  During a visit to a reseller, who matches the color perfectly, I almost tumble over when he says the particular one we want is $50/yard.  We will clean what’s salvageable.  Shannan, ever the best buyer of us two, find it online for half that price.  Better.




She already rebuilt a couple of panels, including the one that goes around the companionway skylight.  The new vinyl hasn’t arrived yet so she used the old one and it looks gorgeous.  We both feel like driving to the boat tonight and putting it back in place… Ok, let’s be reasonable, it can wait till tomorrow.

I kept for the end the not-so-fun part.  The hydraulic system that drives the windlass and bow thruster gives me gray hairs.  The electric motor that drives the system is positioned next to the main diesel and coupled to a hydraulic vane pump.  OF course, this is a hefty motor:  1200w at 12V DC, it can draw up to 100A so you can imagine the cables that runs directly to the starting batteries.  I read a bit on the matter last year and there seems to be somewhat of a conundrum on the subject.  Should a windlass motor be plugged on the house or on the starting batteries?  Some people argue that it should be on the starting batteries, as the load is massive, much like a starter, but others argue that it can be asked to perform for a few minutes at a time, which requires a deep-cycle battery.  The previous owner founf a neet solution:  He bought deep-cycle starting batteries.  Retarded-expensive  but impressive setup.  I also read in his log book that the hydraulic pump burned his alternator in 2009.  Doesn’t sound too good to me.  Anyway, the thing refuses to start on command.  I verify the lines (ok), connections (ok), solenoid (ok) and finally just kick it in action.  This will clearly not do, plus it smokes and runs slow, barely turns the windlass and stops on its tracks when I hit the thruster switch.  I pull the whole thing out and send it tot the repairman.  At least I’ll know what I’m up against.

Tomorrow, we’re starting on the transom…

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Ozona Pram

Work is scheduled to resume on OneLove this summer at last but in the meantime, we completed the first sea trials of the Ozona Pram, a plywood/epoxy dinghy that will soon be sold as a DIY pre-cut kit.  At 71lbs (32kg), she is quite easily driven;  The over-sized 5hp outboard pushing us at 3.5kts in fwd idle.  Great February afternoon in Tampa, ideal for a boat ballad.
The hull is then ready for fairing and paint, as is the centerboard.  Next step will be the rig and rudder.

More details on the design site





Saturday, September 20, 2014

News from Japan and design site. Sistership.

It's been a while since our last post so it's time for a little update.  We're still in Japan, about halfway through our stay  here, dreaming about our girl and the work left to get her in the drink.  Still, a lot is happening. First, JP, our faithful welder got bitten hard enough that he bought a boat this spring;  A gorgeous C&C 33.  Probably thought to himself after seeing our project: How much trouble can I really get into? Congrats JP!
Then the design site is updated, as well as a Facebook page.  We're getting ready to have a change of career so we're slowly placing our pawns.  Here's our latest design, a 44ft cruising catamaran:
That's 280 hours of work right there...

On a different note, I've got an interesting email this week from Mark, who's got a sistership to ours, named Ladybug, on Lake Erie.  He kindly gave me permission to show her up here.
Isn't she pretty?
I just love how businesslike these steel boats are.  Rather funny is that when he sent me this picture, I immediately recognized her.  Before we found OneLove, and while actively searching for a Super Disko, various outdated links for a white 1993 model kept popping up and so I had studied her quite intently and was not a little sorry to have missed the chance by a mere few years.  Anyway, here she is... small world.  Which leads me to invite other Super Disko owners in particular, and Caroff owners in general, to write and make contact (I can easily be reached through the design website).

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

The design website in online!

Hello,
a little update to let you know that the Bedard Yacht Design is live.  For now, it is limited to a gallery and blog focused on yacht design but eventually we will sell plans and pre-cut kits. Go check it out!
http://bedardyachtdesign.com/index.html